Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content, such as voice and data. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. These communication links may be established via a single-input-single-output, multiple-input-single-output or a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system.
Wireless standards may contain power control techniques to control and limit the transmission power utilized by each user equipment (UE) for uplink transmission. For example, the power control technique defined in the LTE standard generates a single, common power value for each user equipment that may be used for all the antennas of the UE. However, different antennas of the UE may experience different fading environments at different points in time.